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My most current pet peeve: Glued on labels

There are so many beautiful drapery and upholstery samples in the books that I aquire. I love using them but getting them from the books to the bag is a challenge. These samples all have labels glued onto the backs of them and 9 out of 10 of them are impossible to remove. This is frustrating. Not only does it take so much time. Especially for someone as OCD as I am. I want every inch of that paper off and will spend hours that I don’t have trying to make it happen.

I’ve pulled out a humidifier and have resorted to placing the swatches over the steam emitted. This helps to get the paper off but doesn’t melt the glue. My Furlough Bags all have a raw seam around the edges and if I can’t get the paper off it shows on the finished product. I realize I’m recycling and perhaps the paper isn’t a big deal for most. For me it is. I see nerve damage happening in my fingers from picking at this. On Monday when my fingers were tingling I decided that the paper may have to show or the sample has to be disgarded. I hate to waste. And I want my products to be as close to perfect as possible. I know, I want everything.

I’ve resorted to a paint scraper once the paper is wet enough. How hard would it be to put simple tags with the same information as the labels on these samples? Then the integrity of the sample would be intact and more of it could be used. I did write to the Robert Allen Company as many of their books are what I have used. They were gracious enough to respond. They wrote that they would let those in their company who handle this know.

In the meantime I have numerous projects I want to put together and hours of labels to remove to get to the creative part of the process. Tenaciousness is something I’ve never denied.